“Let’s line up here with everyone else.”
“Okay! Hey, Yoshio! What do they sell at that store over there?”
“Yakisoba. They’re fried noodles.”
“What’s that stuff that looks like clouds?”
“Cotton candy. It’s really sweet!”
I answered every one of her endless questions. Other visitors were looking at us and smiling warmly. To them, Carol must have seemed like a curious foreign girl. I felt like a proud father with an extremely cute daughter. This must be how parents felt when their relatives praised their kids.
I took more photos, hoping I could show them to Rodice and Lyra later. I was sure they’d love them. In fact, I wanted all my villagers to come to this world and spend time with me. That sounded great.
“What’s all that clinking? Why is everyone clapping?” Carol asked, pulling at my sleeve and interrupting my thoughts. She pointed at the visitors in front of the offerings box, who were clapping and praying.
“That’s how we pray in this world.”
I taught Carol the custom of bowing twice, clapping twice, and then bowing again in front of the shrine. We practiced it over and over in line. The sight made the people around us smile again, and I couldn’t help but smile with them. I’d lost the right to make fun of my relatives for showing off their kids ever again.
When it was our turn, I stepped up to the offertory box with Carol. I already knew how important microtransactions were to a god’s work, so I splurged a little and pulled out two 500-yen coins, one for each of us. I glanced at Carol to see how she was doing. She had her eyes closed, deep in prayer.
“Please let Mommy and Daddy and Gams and Murus and Kan and Lan and…Chem be safe. Please let me see them again,” Carol prayed desperately.
She’d been acting so cheerful, but on the inside she was fervently missing her family and the other villagers. I decided to pray for the same thing: for the villagers’ safety, and for Carol to reunite with them.
“I gave you a little extra,” I whispered to the gods. “Please give us a miracle.”
Deep down, I wouldn’t mind keeping Carol with me from now on. If I convinced my parents, I could continue to take care of her. I knew that was wrong of me. It was selfish. I should wish for her happiness, and that meant sending her home.
“What do we do now?”
“Now we go look at the stalls. Lemme know if you want anything, and I’ll buy it for you.”
“Really?! Won’t Mommy and Daddy get mad?”
“Don’t worry about that. This stuff is nothing compared to all the wonderful offerings you’ve made to the God of Fate. Don’t hold back. Just think of this as gratitude to you and everyone in the village.”
“I’ll say thank you to them when I get back!”
“Good idea.”
I saw countless times how well behaved she was through my PC screen, and now that she was here with me, I could feel how much love and discipline her parents had put into her upbringing.
“Where do you wanna start?” I asked.
“Um, I wanna get a fluffy cloud thingy, and one of those round things, and, um…and…”
“There’s no rush.” I chuckled. “The stalls aren’t going anywhere. Let’s get some cotton candy first, then.”
Carol grabbed my hand and pulled me along. Did we look like father and daughter to everyone around us? It fit our ages. Although there was Carol’s golden hair and western features… On second thought, we probably didn’t look related after all. Kind of a shame.
“What’s that drink those people in the pretty clothes are handing out?” Carol pointed to the priests and shrine maidens giving out sacred sake.
“That’s an alcoholic drink you’re supposed to offer to the gods. Today’s a special day, so you’re allowed to drink it.”
“I’m a kid, so I’m not allowed.”
“That’s right. But you can eat whatever you want instead.”
I never drank the sacred sake myself; I was a lightweight. Seika loved drinking, but her tolerance was even worse than mine. I bet she’d love to be here right now.
Carol and I took our cotton candy, takoyaki, and yakisoba to a nearby bench. She was ecstatic. We chose a spot looking out over a pond, a little ways away from the shrine. Only the locals knew about this place; it was completely deserted. The low murmur of the crowd was just audible in the distance.
It was unusually warm for January, and the sky was clear, but it was still chilly in the shadows. I worried that Carol might be cold, but she was munching on her takoyaki with a huge smile on her face.
“The festival was a lot of fun! There were lots of people, and they all seemed so happy!”
I’m glad she enjoyed herself.
Carol was eating away in silence, so I reached into my coat’s inside pocket and pulled out a book—the holy book that came to this world with Carol. The cover felt just like any other hardback. It was larger than an ordinary mass-market but smaller than a manga. I flipped through it. It was filled with the prophecies I sent my villagers.
For a moment I lost myself in the pages, the memories of each message coming back. I had to force myself back to reality. This book’s presence in my world was the reason I couldn’t see anything in The Village of Fate anymore.
I came up with all sorts of theories in the bath yesterday, trying to find a way out of this situation. If this book was the object that gave the God of Fate his power, then maybe its existence in this world was a problem for the game developers, too. And who were the developers anyway? That was the biggest mystery of all. All my supernatural experiences made me lean toward the conclusion that they were gods themselves. Not that they were, you know, godlike to make a game like The Village of Fate. Just that they were literal gods. That was the only feasible explanation.
“Why do you have a spiky head? Don’t your mouth and ears hurt?”
I looked up to find Carol no longer beside me. She was standing a few feet away eating a candy apple and talking to a man wearing a super weird outfit. His face looked Japanese, but his hair was blond and gelled up into several spikes like a rooster, and his lips and ears were covered in piercings. He wore a western rock band T-shirt under a leather jacket, and his jeans were torn in several places. He was the type of person I never thought I’d meet in my entire life.
“Come on, Carol. Sorry about her.” I stood up from the bench and bowed my head at the man.
“No worries. Get it all the time, lookin’ this awesome.”
He seemed friendly, despite how he looked. He smiled at Carol.
“You look cold!”
“Nah, my soul’s always burnin’ hot. I’m actually overheatin’ right now.”
Friendly or not, I wasn’t sure about his language. I continued to bow my head and slid in behind Carol. I put a hand on her shoulder to lead her away—but my hand closed around thin air.
“Huh?”
I looked up. The man had grabbed Carol’s arm, holding on to her. Did she make him mad after all?
“I’m sorry if we annoyed you. I’ll apologize properly. Could you give her back to me first?”
“Afraid not…God of Fate.”